He has a dozen friends and you don’t. All of those CUSTOMERS… and you somehow feel entitled to be safe, solo?
You don’t think that is at all selfish or unreasonable?
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Why are you (and your corp/alliance) being bad and letting it impact you? Why don’t you instead look at the AFK cloaked ship as a potential easy killmail and hope that it decloaks to commit suicide? The answer is that you are weak and even the potential of a threat is enough to scare you into docking forever.
That is the issue is NOT that it is impossible to deal with, is the scale of the solution to one FREAKING AFK cloaker is beyond the ability of a small group to deal with
Welcome to EVE. You are not entitled to succeed in nullsec just because you are capable of killing the NPCs. Failure is always an option in EVE, and sometimes the answer is that your small group is weak and fails to deal with bigger threats. This is working exactly as intended.
unless they ALWAYS log on for exactly the same time
Wait, you mean there’s a solution where your corp/alliance can be organized and defeat the threat? But it isn’t acceptable because it doesn’t let you solo farm 23/7 like it’s highsec?
AFK cloaking is sort of like trying to put your competitor out of business by repeatedly calling in bomb threats to their place of business. THe police/fire department have to go in and check it out shutting them down for the day, since there is always a chance. Except in this make believe world the police are incapable of tracing the call, so your competitor has to suffer months at 75% capacity.
Welcome to EVE. If you’re shut down by the EVE equivalent of a bomb threat then it’s because you are weak and don’t deserve to succeed. The stronger players and organizations, the ones that have earned their success, look at the bomb threat and say “bring it on, I’ve got a bigger bomb”.
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Just curious…@Mike_Voidstar…are you still logging in? Despite our differences, I sure hope so. I’ll never concede to you on the forums…but I don’t want players to quit.
Your bomb threat example is a poor analogy because calling in a bomb threat is an action. By it’s very definition, AFK cloaking is a non-action. A better analogy would be if your competitor was afraid that you might call in a bomb threat to disrupt their business and closed up shop even though you haven’t actually done anything.
So I haven’t brought this up for a while but now feels like a good time: based purely on game mechanics, how can you tell the difference between someone who is AFK cloaking with the intent of disrupting the local operations in a given system and someone who had to cloak up to go to the bathroom but got distracted by real life stuff before they could get back to the keyboard?
You can’t. That would require game servers to be able to tell if you were physically at your keyboard and/or what you are thinking if you are there. There is no clear way for the game servers to definitively identify these things. This means that any change in the game to counter deliberate AFK cloaking would have to be entirely arbitrary.
Arbitrary changes are bad.
EDIT post 4444. WHOOT! 
Yes, I have no problem with a 1/2 hour, could maybe accept 5 hours, 10 hours, 2 days? Going on 20+ days, that is BS and they can design a system to prevent it. I think the cloak fuel idea is the best and 300 m3 should be about a day. So at some point you have to leave. Other would be some way to force him to leave or log off by using slow scanning systems that mean if he is currently on he can just dodge it, but if afk he will be found eventually.
Well it would be silly to close on a maybe call, it is however sometimes necessary to respect the chance that the afk cloaker is semi active if you have less than 5 defenders. And yes over a period of time and pain you can sort of work out the AFK guys schedule and when he is simply not a threat. That is the problem he only has to occasionally be paying the MINIMUM attention a few times a day to drop an impact several orders magnitude more than his ship on the residents of a system (or in a current case MULTIPLE AFK across most of a constellation)
If you are in nullsec and you are worried about a single AFK cloaker overwhelming five defenders, then you do not effectively control the space you are operating in and you have absolutely nothing to be complaining about.
Your problem isn’t a lone AFK cloaker, it’s the fact that you apparently live in fear of a lone AFK cloaker because you don’t control your space.
Working as intended.
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So what is the problem with 20 days?
He can’t DO ANYTHYING while cloaked.
(can’t believe we are repeating this, can’t you people read what has already been posted? Same ■■■■ different bears?)
Nail, meet Hammer.
This. Yet another person who is bad at EVE fails to understand that putting your name on a system does not mean that you control it, and that having that name on the system doesn’t mean you’re entitled to 23/7 risk-free farming.
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Since covert ops and recons both need something to boost them to being unique, and afk cloaking is an issue, what would eve look like if we simply just removed cloaks from non-cloak based ships?
Read this thread, AFK Cloaking IS NOT AN ISSUE.
People afraid to undock when someone is in the system, even if that other person is docked, are the issue.
And you can’t code for pixel fear.
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Yes you can. Removing local is n option. All psychological issues in a game are fixed with code, never forget that.
AFK cloaking is an issue, i do not care what others “think” about it “not being an issue”. The down right single reason people want the ability to “find” cloaked ships, is purely for “security” of dealing with them to go back to the mining etc.
Stations (if built) can prevent redock, and people often say “hes in the station playing with the market and never undocks”. Everyone establishes these patterns over time and eventually learn to not care about a person who “stays docked all the time”.
Cloaking is not at all the same situation. You have no identifier of him being afk or not. its no like the station where you an see local, check to see if he is docked and no be bothered about it.
I like the suggestions people have made that make local a feature of the sov alliance “possessing” the gates in the system. It can be hacked into at a gate by outsiders.
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Good reminder. It’s important to emphasize that the AFK cloaking “problem” disappears entirely if you remove local. But RMT botters will never accept this change…
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I like how CCP does not inted to do anything at all despite how easy a fix it would be. Because cloacky campers pay subscription as well.
Fix for what?
AFK is legal and not broken
Cloaking is legal and not broken
The only “Issue” is some players are afraid to undock if anyone else is in the system, cloaked docked or other.
You can’t fix Pixel Cowardice.
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Hahahaa, a 4450+ Threadnaught and this guys thinks its an “easy fix”.
Please enlighten us as to your “easy fix”…
Having fallen prey to the frustration of having an area of systems stealthy camped, i have read through a healthy portion of the arguments.
And while i see that opinions on this point is a ticking bomb, that might go off in the face anyone who goes near it. And there may very well be more factors involved that i can’t honestly say i understand 100 %.
I still feel i have something to say.
My issue with stealth campers is simple: They are obviously over powered.
I am a big supporter of them being able to exist in some capacity, but not without limits. As is they are a mechanic without an anti mechanic.
I would argue that there should be something that could break down their defense over time.
A system wide module that takes their cloak away after a long setup period. Or specialized scanners, that can attune a ships systems to be able to pin them down, given enough time to calibrate. Or something else that allows someone who is willing to take the time (30 mins, or even 60+) to counter the cloakiness of the campers.
That way they CAN camp, but if someone is willing to invest the time, they can be found. It needs to be an investment to find them. But every mechanic needs a counter measure
Why? They are unable to kill anything, unable to gather intel, etc. All they can do is keep a name in local. So why is having a name in local so overpowered?
But every mechanic needs a counter measure
There is a countermeasure. Farm in PvP-fitted fleets, and if the AFK cloaker ever does anything but sit idle in space with a name in local you all press F1 and get an easy killmail. If you’re a strong and competent group in nullsec then AFK cloaking is not a threat to you. The only people who can’t counter it in the current system are RMT botters and renter trash whose skill ceiling is somewhere around a RMT bot, and those people deserve to get evicted back to highsec and/or banned for botting.
Add cycle time to the cloacking devices and fuel consumption. Which wont allow unlimited cloacky time since you will need to do refuel trips that make you vulnerable at thoose times. Its a simple and easy fix.
Maki it so permanently using a cloack can deplete a Bombers fuel in 2-3 hours based on cargo capacity. That should be enough time for any cover ops operation. Without abusing it too much. And with careful management (warping uncloacked) and so you could last 6-8 hours partially cloacked but active in that given time.
This is a really simple fix to the problem. Players could still do whatever they want cloacked as long theyh ave enough fuel. Which will also force them to manage if they want to carry a bunch of items around or want to cloack for longer periods.
This is an “Easy fix”. Yes it comes with a price which is cargo management. And limited cloacking time. From which the later is the solution to the problem in hand.
PS theese numbers are just examples. CCP can do the math to balance it.
PS2 Even a fuel bay for cover ops ships could work. Giving them a fix maximum cloack time.